


A Steady Flame

by Kiraly



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Extended Metaphors, Fire, Implied Sexual Content, Kissing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:40:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25815946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiraly/pseuds/Kiraly
Summary: Fire is a constant in Emil's life, shaping his path, pulling him. He's never felt that pull from a person...until Lalli came along.
Relationships: Lalli Hotakainen/Emil Västerström
Comments: 14
Kudos: 45





	A Steady Flame

**Author's Note:**

> So today I stumbled across [a Tumblr post](https://trashpocket.tumblr.com/post/625666215917060096/ssss-prompt-1-emil-v%C3%A4sterstr%C3%B6m) by trashpocket with the following prompt:
> 
> "Somehow, their gazes spark and sizzle like a livewire, and if Emil was afraid, nobody would've known.
> 
> _He looked like he was ready to set himself on fire._ "
> 
> I didn't use the words exactly, but it sparked (ha!) an idea. So you all get several hundred words of Emil/Lalli romance via fire metaphors. Thanks for the idea trashpocket!
> 
> I also listened to the song [_Livewire_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjgnOP8f5NU) by Oh Wonder about a dozen times while writing this, because it's always been an Emil/Lalli song for me and the prompt reminded me of it. Feel free to give it a listen!

Emil was no stranger to fire. For as long as he could remember, he’d been drawn to it: hot tongues of flame licking logs on the hearth, star-bright sparks catching dry wood, smoke curling toward the sky. When he rose from the ashes of his old life, the Cleansers put fire at his fingertips and taught him to shape it. Awake, he set the world ablaze. In dreams, the embers of his past were ever-present, drawing him closer. 

He’d never felt that pull from a  _ person,  _ though. Not until he met Lalli Hotakainen.

_ An unflinching gaze, observing as he tried to eat a sandwich with the meat stolen from it. A furious glare in the aftermath of a poorly-timed explosive. Fierce, protective, blue light spilling from eyes and hands to drive off a giant or a troll’s corrupting thoughts.  _

Lalli, running silently beside him. Lalli, taking down a troll with nothing but a knife. Lalli in his dreams, eating cake with his bare hands. Lalli, murmuring a soft litany of...Finnish swear words?

Emil woke cold, blinking slowly until his eyes focused. There wasn’t much light in this corner of the burned-out house. Just enough to see a familiar silhouette, all graceful lines and sharp angles, hunched over the remnants of last night’s dead fire.

“It went out?” Emil kept his voice low, but Lalli’s head snapped up anyway. Too dark to see his face clearly, further shadowed by the fall of his hair, but Emil watched the shape of his shoulders stiffen, then soften.

“Won’t light.” Lalli’s voice was always half-whisper anyway. There was no reason for it to make Emil shiver. Must have been the chill in the air.

“Let me try,” he said, and wrapped the blanket around him before rising to join Lalli.

The wood was damp when they found it; the whole house was, after the rain that drove them here in the first place. They’d managed enough of a fire to dry things out a little, leaving their clothes and gear merely damp instead of sodden. Emil had stacked the extra firewood around the edge, hoping it would dry too. From Lalli’s cursing, it hadn’t been very successful.

Still. There were ways to coax a flame from even the tiniest spark, if he cared for it properly. Emil scraped a few scraps of lint from his tinderbox, surrounded them with shavings from the driest stick he could find. A strike—a spark, caught. He fed it twigs, carefully, slowly, tiny puffs of air to encourage it. Built the fire a place to live, small at first but steadily growing. It smoked, spat, reminded him why dry wood was best. But any fire was better than no fire. He would take what he could get.

When the flames were established enough to be left on their own, Emil looked up and met Lalli’s gaze across the fire. Orange light shimmered on his pale hair, danced along his cheekbones and in his eyes.  _ Oh.  _ There it was, that burning warmth, stronger and somehow completely different than the heat rising up from his campfire.  _ What is this,  _ he wanted to ask, but he lacked words to explain it in any language. And deep down, smoldering at the core of who he was, part of him knew already. Even when he averted his eyes—down to the shadowy hollow of Lalli’s throat, the delicate line of his collarbones, over to the shoulder laid bare when his fur cloak slipped—Emil couldn’t look away from the truth.

“Emil.” 

He didn’t  _ want  _ to look away.

Lalli was still watching him when Emil raised his eyes. Whatever he saw, it must have pleased him; his mouth rose in a tiny smile. “Are you cold?”

Emil was an inferno, molten desire boiling just below the surface. Lalli was a lightning bolt, crackling energy spun to a fine point. Their gazes sparked and sizzled, a livewire, a conduit waiting to form. One touch—that was all it would take. One spark.

He didn’t know what Lalli saw, but he knew what he wanted. He was ready to set himself on fire. 

“Yes.” Slow. Tentative. Carefully placed twigs. A hand reaching out—fingers, callused with old burn scars, stroking a smooth cheek. “Lalli—”

A flare. A surge of heat, flames rising in ice-blue eyes. No space between them now, no frigid air. Only skin, warm and soft, fur cloak slipping away to pool with the blankets on the floor. “Emil,” Lalli said, decisive, and pulled him into a searing kiss.

For all its heat, it was gentle, that fire between them. Steady flames, caressing as they consumed. Emil had thought, once, that his passion for fire would burn him one day, kindle a blaze that would die down all too soon. With Lalli, though, there was no fear of fizzling. Every touch—mouth, hands, knees, hips—only served to stoke the flames. They were a well-banked bed of coals, spread evenly, a fire built to outlast the longest night.

The fires in Emil’s dream were distant this time, far less pressing than the warm body pressed against his. When he woke again, still tangled up with Lalli, he watched the orange embers of the campfire as the sun rose.


End file.
